Gear Review: Vivo V5 Lite

The race for the best selfie-centric smartphone is on, and for the budget conscious crowd, the relatively newcomer Vivo is on their radar. Vivo is a China-based company and has been present in the Philippines for less than 2 years.

Here is our review of their budget selfie smartphone, the Vivo V5 Lite.

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What’s in the box

Unit with pre-installed screen protector

Jelly Case

Charger

USB Cable

Sime Eject Pin

Headset

Manuals and Leaflets

Build and Design

The V5 lite’s design is all too familiar. For the untrained eye, the Vivo V5 lite can pass as Apple’s iPhone 6 plus. As is the case for most Chinese phone manufacturers, Apple has been the inspiration for their released phones. Both the front and the back of the phone borrowed its design from the iconic phone but is immediately given away by the non-lit capacitive keys as well as the Vivo logo at the back. Even the placement of antenna band is fairly similar to the iPhone 6.

The front panel is protected by a 2.5D curved glass and houses the 16MP camera, a led flash, led notifications, ambient sensor and earpiece.

The back part is metal-built and features the 13MP camerawith a single led flash.

The right edge houses the tactile volume buttons and power button. The left edge is where you can find the hybrid dual sim slot. The bottom edge houses the single speaker, mic, USB 2.0 port and the 3.5mm headset port. The top edge is devoid of any port or buttons.

The V5 Lite is a slim device measuring at 7.6mm and somewhat lightweight at 155g.

Display

The Vivo V5 Lite sports a 5.5 inch IPS LCD display with a screen resolution of 720×1280 pixels with a 268dpi. Personally, I find the display of the V5 lite as one of its strongest aspects especially when you consider its price. The display is bright, the colors are natural yet icons are rendered punchy. It also has a respectable viewing angle and I would say one of the best display on a budget phone.

Performance

What drives the V5 Lite is a combination of an 8-core MediaTek MT6750 CPU clocked at 1.51ghz paired with 3GB worth of RAM. For its GPU, it sports a Mali-T860. It has a built-in 32GB of internal storage, but can be expanded further via a micro SD card. Vivo says the V5 Lite can support up to 128GB.

Using the V5 lite for 2 weeks as my personal daily driver, I can say that the phone is truly capable of meeting the demands of a power user without having to burn a hole in your wallet. Performance demanding apps like Facebook, and Instagram ran without noticeable lags. For normal day to day operations, the V5 Lite is truly commendable, especially considering its price tag.

Some high definition games I tested against the V5 Lite included Asphalt Extreme and Mobile Legends. I was quite happy with the V5 Lite’s performance on the said game titles. I was able to run the games without any noticeable frame drops on gameplay.

However, the V5 Lite struggled against NBA 2K17, another popular game title amongst mobile gamers. Even adjusting the settings to ultra low, the gameplay was laggy. Truth to be told, this game title (NBA2K) has been somewhat a barometer amongst mobile gamers whether to buy a phone or not.

Camera

The V5 Lite has a 16 MP front snapper and slightly lower 13 MP rear camera, giving it away as a selfie-centric phone. The 16MP front camera captures well-exposed photos even in a low-lit environment. It has a Face Beauty mode which allows you to adjust the skin tone and whitens the skin of the subject. It also supports multiple filters. Other modes supported include front-facing panorama mode and front video selfies.

Flipping it over and we have the 13MP camera capable of taking good photos. It also supports professional or manual mode which allows you to adjust the exposure value (EV), ISO (up to 1600), Shutter speed (up to 16 seconds).

I must say I was impressed with the inclusion of the manual mode given the price point. Some more expensive medium range phones won’t even offer this feature and it’s quite baffling given Vivo, Xiaomi and Oppo are able to do it with their sub 10K pesos mid-rangers.

Other modes supported include Slow Motion Video, Time Lapse, Night Mode, Panorama mode and also Face Beauty. Below are sample shots were taken with both the front and rear camera of the V5 Lite.

Interface

Vivo has its own Android skin called Funtouch OS, and as you may have guessed it, it’s loosely inspired by Apple’s IOS. Xiaomi doesn’t even come close to Vivo’s Funtouch OS with its also IOS inspired MIUI. From icons to the overall experience, Funtouch OS feels like IOS. For those who want to switch to Android from IOS, this can be your gateway to Android. Enjoy the style and simplicity of IOS while also enjoying the “openness” Android has to offer.

Below are screenshots of the Marshmallow 6.0 based, Funtouch UI.

Battery Life

The V5 Lite is powered by a 3000 mah internal battery which can last you a day in normal usage. You can prolong the battery life further by turning off some unused features like WiFi, Bluetooth, A-GPS, and switching back to 2G or 3G from 4G LTE.

The Verdict

The Good

well built device

good display for a sub 10K pesos device

cameras both rear and back take good photos

sound output quality is commendable

The Bad

No fingerprint scanner

Copies the iPhone too much both in physical design and user interface

Uninspired generic design

Article first published on NewsBytes.PH Reposted at Gear App Snap with permissions from the editor Article author is the site owner